Transformers: the unique challenge of changing gender within a relationship

Changing from one sex to another clearly involves an enormous physical and emotional upheaval, but for the long-term partners of transgender individuals the process often has an equally profound impact.

By Benjamin Law

March 5, 2015 — 11.45am

It's probably bad form to just show up at a stranger's house and ask whether you can access their personal diaries, but to her credit, Janet Rice - federal senator for the Greens in Victoria - is happy to oblige. I'm drinking tea in her family home in Melbourne's Footscray, flanked by Janet's spouse, Penny Whetton, and their adult sons John and Leon, as Janet struggles to locate the right volume in the next room. Penny - who has glacier-white hair and the regal stature of a former jillaroo - scolds Janet happily, disagreeing on the key dates Janet is looking for.

"The house renovations were in 1997," Penny says, "so the conversation was in 1998."

Janet concedes Penny's probably right - Penny's much better with numbers - but she still can't find the diary. It's funny; you'd think such a momentous, pivotal occasion in Janet's life - you know, like discovering your life partner is a cross-dresser, who will eventually come out as transgender - would be easier to smoke out, but no.

Finally, though, Janet emerges victorious, an old Anne Geddes hardback diary in hand. She joins us on the sofa, flips to the entry we're all looking for, adjusts her glasses and reads:

"An unsettling week. After writing the last bit there, Peter dropped his cross-dressing bombshell. It had been preying on him. It's not surprising that dominated the week. He left for Germany at lunch time, fully packed. A shock; a surprise; an uneasiness. A re-looking at the bloke I've loved for 17 years, who I thought I knew inside out. A whole new aspect, focus, realm, has been revealed. Peter says it's important to him, but not a big part of his life - that if it threatened our relationship, he'd suppress [it], as it was for the first 15 years of our relationship. It's been the opportunity of nights in strange hotel rooms across the world that has led him back to it."

Janet pauses to stop herself from laughing, as she reads out the punch-line:

"Overwhelmingly, it's bizarrely amusing."

Turn and face the change: Keri Bristow and her spouse Christine during Keri's transition into womanhood.Credit:Glenn Hunt

Everyone roars with laughter. No one laughs harder than Janet and Penny.

This happened such a long time ago, they explain, and started when Penny - then living in the world as "Peter" - handed over to Janet a letter she'd been composing in private for months.

Different strokes: Keri Bristow (at left) and Christine in their earlier days as a couple, with daughter Kiannah.

"I rewrote and rewrote that letter," Penny remembers. "I wanted to get the words right and have my thoughts well-organised. I thought, 'If I get it into a letter, then all I have to do is say, "Read this." ' "

One night in June 1998, Penny handed Janet the letter, which detailed how Penny had felt urges, since childhood, to dress in women's clothing. The timing of the letter was on purpose. As a climate scientist with the CSIRO, Penny was about to fly to Germany for several weeks for work and couldn't bear hiding her cross-dressing from Janet any longer. The distance, she felt, would give the couple time to digest it all.

Modern family: Christine, Kiannah and Keri, today.Credit:Glenn Hunt

There were practical considerations, too. Every time Penny went out on a significant overseas trip, she would buy items of female clothing, wear them in the privacy of her hotel room, then throw it all away before she returned home. "It just felt like an incredible waste," she says.

So coming out to Janet was partly a budgetary decision, then?

The women squawk with laughter at the thought.

"That's right!" Janet says. "The thought of chucking away all of these good clothes in the bin!"

In all seriousness, Janet says what shocked her most wasn't that her then-husband was a cross-dresser. What she found most upsetting was that they'd been married for 11 years - together for 16 - and Penny had hidden from Janet something so fundamentally significant to her identity. "I never suspected one jot," Janet says.

Does that mean that when Janet found out, she felt angry? Stupid? Betrayed?

"No. It was more ... bemused. And I was thinking for Penny; feeling worried and sorry for her. Still, I was incredibly impressed she had managed to keep it hidden all of that time." Janet laughs, mock-reprimanding Penny with a hint of pride. "She was very, very clever."

Many months after Penny gave Janet that letter, Penny started to suspect - with the assistance of counselling - that she was not a cross-dressing man, but someone who had gender dysphoria: a transgender woman.

One evening, after Penny had started to live "part-time" dressing as a woman, the couple found themselves out dancing. They had been discussing the possibility of Penny living as a woman full-time and what that would mean for their family; what would change; what would stay the same. Janet remembers something clicking on the dance floor.

"It's not going to put our relationship at risk," she decided. "I looked at Penny and thought, 'Yeah, she's pretty attractive.' And I love her. And if she was going to become Penny permanently, I would still continue loving her.' "

How many of us could do the same: stay committed to a long-term partner if he or she announced they were living a lie and were another gender entirely? For many people in relationships who discover their partner is transgender, the shock of the revelation is often coupled with trauma, grief, humiliation and rage - often at themselves. How could they not have known?

Dr Elizabeth Riley, a Sydney-based counsellor who has worked with gender-diverse clients for more than 15 years, tells me about one couple she treated where the non-transitioning partner suffered a meltdown and ended up in psychiatric care.

"There are those who stay together, who are supportive and it works," Riley says. "But there are also those who plan to do that [be supportive], then find they just can't bring themselves to - either at the beginning, or some point through it [the transition]."

Moreover, non-transitioning partners often find it difficult - if not plain impossible - to be sexually attracted to their partner's new physical form. "Sexually, if the husband's losing a penis, the wife may be feeling that as a very deep loss," Riley says. "For some of the women, they go, 'I just realise I'm not sexually attracted to them any more. That's just gone.' "

Of the several hundred transgender clients in long-term relationships Riley has counselled, roughly two-thirds are transgender women like Penny Whetton, and the remaining third are transgender men, the majority of whom have previously been in same-sex relationships with women. Riley says transgender men who previously identified as lesbians often find it easier to maintain existing relationships, since "the lesbian community is more tolerant of having a partner transitioning and remaining part of the queer community".

Additionally, Riley suspects that by having spent their formative years as female, transgender men often find transition easier in general, having been conditioned and socialised to communicate their feelings. "Plus, society lets women wears men's clothes and lets women do men's activities in a way men aren't allowed to."

Bearded, cubbish-looking and gentle in nature, Sydney-based Teddy Cook - who has a pierced nose and the word "GENT" tattooed on his right knuckles - identifies as "a man with a trans history". Now 36, his relationship with Katy Jones began when Teddy was 30 and Katy was 24. Teddy had already changed to his current name by deed poll, but identified at the time as genderqueer, a catch-all term for any gender identity that lies outside conventional notions of "male" and "female". Katy, a bisexual woman, remembers meeting Teddy at a group dinner when they were backpacking through Kerala, India.

Almost, but to people in India, not quite. While travelling, Teddy would bind his chest, shave his head and wear a big spike through his pierced septum. Still, everyone in India still referred to him as "Madam", something that corroded his self-esteem.

After they started dating, Teddy returned to Sydney to live with his identical twin sister, while Katy continued her travels for two more months. The now long-distance couple constantly Skyped and texted and would often discuss the prospect of Teddy medically transitioning. When Katy and Teddy reunited in Australia, Teddy was even more serious about starting a course of testosterone.

Though supportive, Katy had reservations. She worried she might lose the version of Teddy with whom she fell in love. Teddy shared those anxieties but had a few extra. "I was worried about being around men," he says. "Living in the world as a woman, you grow up being afraid of men. I was like, 'Am I going to just be part of the problem now?' " He fretted about how testosterone would affect his mental health and what he'd look like. "For a period of time, I was like, 'Am I going to look like a bearded lady?' Not that there's anything wrong with being a bearded lady, but I was like, 'That's not where I'm at.' "

Eventually, though, Teddy bit the bullet and went through what he describes as "another puberty".

"My first year was gross," he says. "My face puffed out, then squared off a bit, and I had this chipmunk voice; my voice was breaking." Like a teenage boy, he started masturbating more frequently. His shoulders broadened. All of a sudden, he noticed body hair around his bum. Semi tongue-in-cheek, he started to dress head-to-toe in tradie gear, while deliberately putting on his most camp voice.

"I did not enjoy that," Katy says. "If he was encouraging me to 'Hurry up', it sounded really intense."

For the most part, though, the couple are happy with Teddy's transition. Katy's parents in the UK - who were never thrilled with their daughter dating women - are now over the moon she has a bona fide boyfriend. "I'm slightly irritated I'd gone through all the trouble to come out to my parents now," she says.

In contrast to Penny Whetton and Teddy Cook, Keri Bristow is only early into her transition into womanhood. When I meet Keri and her spouse Christine - both 41 - at their townhouse in Queensland's Sunshine Coast, Keri pours me a lemonade-juice mix as she recalls a dark period. In 2013, Keri was plagued with thoughts of killing herself and found the only way of staving them off would be to drive out late at night, dressed as a woman, protected by the anonymity of the dark.

Christine assumed Keri - then presenting to the world as her toned, personal trainer husband - was having an affair. After she saw, via iPhone's GPS tracking, that Keri was lying about her whereabouts, Christine demanded the truth. When Keri returned, the couple had the first in a series of long, late-night conversations. No, the childhood cross-dressing that Keri had mentioned early in their marriage had never stopped. And yes, those times Christine thought a burglar was going through her clothes wasn't the result of paranoia - it was Keri trying them on.

Christine and Keri can laugh about these incidents now, but Christine adds the only thing that's kept them together has been these ongoing uncensored conversations, which often go on past midnight. "We promised to talk about everything," she says. "No question is out of bounds." She opens her palms, hoping she's not making it sound overly simple. "It is hard. It's not easy. It's an uncomfortable thing we're talking about."

Considering Keri was a personal trainer in her previous life, does Christine worry about retaining her levels of sexual attraction to her? Christine thinks and responds slowly and carefully. "Not really, no," she says. "Because again, we're best friends; we're enjoying shopping, for instance. Plus, I mean, we've never enjoyed shopping, but now it's something fun to do together. And it's not like ..." She clicks her fingers.

"... BAM, Keri's got long beautiful hair and is female."

"It's been incremental steps," Keri says.

In January last year, when Keri started her hormone treatment, Keri and Christine sat down with their nine-year-old daughter, Kiannah, and tried to explain what was happening. Keri told her daughter: "Daddy was born with half a boy brain, half a girl brain. I dress in girl clothes when my girl brain wants to and boy clothes when my boy brain wants to."

"She kind of went, 'Huh. Okay, I can understand that', " Keri says.

In September, the family had another conversation. With Keri quickly understanding she was a transgender woman, she asked Kiannah how she'd feel about the prospect of having two mums.

"She was a little upset," Keri says. "But the only thing she was worried about was what other people would think of us; whether they'd laugh us down the street. Apart from that, she thinks it's cool."

Luckily, Kiannah's concerns - of her parents being mocked by strangers - have proven unfounded. "The typical Hollywood picture of a transgender person is someone with high heels, horrible make-up, blonde wig, skimpy dress," Keri says. "You're going to stand out like nothing else. Whereas the fashion on the Sunshine Coast is very casual, like - well this." Keri gestures to her outfit: a low-key cotton peasant blouse and burgundy head-wrap, a look perhaps best described as "coastal gypsy".

"I try to blend in," she says. "Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we get looks. I've never had laughter. I've never been abused. Just double-takes."

Another consideration was how Kiannah should refer to Keri, considering she had called her "Dad" for her entire life. Keri and Christine felt it was important for Kiannah to decide herself.

Elizabeth Riley says the Bristows made the right call. "It's not fair for the child to stop calling Mum 'Mum', or Dad 'Dad' - or for them to start using a different name if they don't want to. I explain to parents that they have to handle the anxiety around that. Some parents are confronted by that, but the children have to be protected at all costs."

Riley says children tend to take the news badly if they're going through puberty or are post-pubescent - high-schoolers, essentially. "The younger the children are, the easier it will be," Riley says. By the time they become teenagers, Riley says, young people have often developed reservations or prejudices about the idea of people changing sex.

"Teenagers are worried about what peers think about their parents in any case," she says. "Between 12 and 17, they may not even want to be seen with their parents. If there's a parent transitioning, that just exaggerates that."

Janet Rice and Penny Whetton say that, on reflection, their family's existing attitudes towards sexuality and gender possibly helped them accept Penny's transition. "I think we're both pretty accepting people," Janet says. "Neither of us are highly judgmental. We'll take things at face value and say, 'Okay, let's explore that,' as a way of approaching life and the world. That's interesting, rather than feeling threatened."

But what about the interests of the child? Same-sex couples in Australia who raise children are controversial enough in some circles and communities, but transgender parents?

Penny laughs and turns to her two sons, John and Leon: "Well you've turned out all right!"

Meanwhile, Keri and Christine have told close friends and family about Keri's female identity (Facebook has made Keri's coming out efficient), but so far, they haven't engaged Kiannah's school in any formal discussions. Do they feel the need to? "I don't know," Keri says. "I'm of the opinion that when we go to the next parent-teacher interview and I'm there as Keri ..." She trails off.

That it'll be self-explanatory?

"Exactly," she says.

For now, though, some of Kiannah's friends and friends' parents already know Keri is transgender. So far, it's not a big deal. In fact, Kiannah is now the one who regularly pulls up Christine whenever she accidentally refers to Keri as "Dad" or uses male pronouns instead of "she" and "her". In the meantime, it seems like Kiannah's quickly settling into the new name she's decided to call Keri. Most of the time, she refers to her as "Kezza".

As for surgery, they are undecided. Early on, they were both against it. "But as with a lot of things, it's a transition; it's not a change. It's a slow transition," Keri says. "And we've gotten to the stage where it's like, 'Okay, well maybe that is in the future.' "

Couples like Penny and Janet, and Keri and Christine - who originally married under Australian law as opposite-sex couples - can, strictly speaking, stay married under Australian law. However, because Australian law defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman - to the exclusion of all others - these couples' marriages are only valid until the point people like Penny or Keri want to change their legal sex. Currently, Australian state laws require people who apply to change sex on their identification to be unmarried - a condition some legal experts argue is bigoted in intent.

Transgender people in their position therefore face a grim choice: (1) remain legally wedded to their partners, but deny their affirmed sex in official documentation; or (2) affirm their sex on their birth certificate, and be forced into divorce.

Some Australian state politicians are pushing to change this. In October 2014, NSW Upper House Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi and Lower House Independent Alex Greenwich introduced the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Amendment (Change of Sex) Bill. The bill argues that a married person who has undergone sex-affirmation procedures should have the ability to update their birth certificate without having to get a divorce. Similar bills have been put forward in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. None have yet passed into law.

So far, Penny has acquired a female passport, but she has stopped at getting a female birth certificate, to ensure her marriage to Janet remains legal.

Janet now adds that as much as the past 17 years has seen Penny undergo a profound, visible and obvious transition, Janet has had to fundamentally change, too.

"The biggest thing for me was the realignment of how I viewed my sexuality and the realisation that I wasn't heterosexual; that I was bisexual," she says.

Christine and Keri Bristow can relate. "Christine's had to transition just as much as me," Keri says. "A lot of people don't get or understand that. I'm transitioning mentally and physically, but Christine's transitioning mentally - just as much as me - in getting her head around it."

At Janet Rice and Penny Whetton's home, Janet finishes off her tea and finishes reading that diary entry from June 1998, just before Penny left for Germany:

"I helped him shop this morning, which was further unsettling - not difficult, just unsettling. I think of him dressing up in the blue dress from the Red Cross op-shop - his wig, stockings, make-up - and I'm bemused. I can accept his rationalisations, which he acknowledges are just that. I can understand the appeal - the frisson, even - of so blatantly crossing cultural divides, but it's a funny thought. I certainly haven't rejected him. I love him."